Foto Friday: Power to the Polarizer!

This week: a paen to the power of the polarizer. The first photo shows a dramatic sunrise.

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 1December 2008

And now we rotate the polarizer 90 degrees, and get this:

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 2December 2008

These two pictures were taken seconds apart. I like the first one much better, but I admit the second one more closely resembles what I saw with my eye.

I particularly like the curly clouds in the upper left. In the second polarization you barely notice them; in the first they're dramatically different in color from the linear clouds. To my eye, using the first polarization, they were almost white, but the film doesn't capture this.

The actual sunrise is about to take place off to the right. It's not nearly so cool.